Los Angeles was most efficient flight back to US

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill).

It was unclear why she was brought to Los Angeles and where she would be taken next.

The Marshals Service alerted Mexican authorities, who detained Couch and his mother, the official said.

(TV Azteca via AP).

The U.S. Marshals Service tracked Couch to Mexico using electronic surveillance, including tracking a cell phone believed to be linked to him, an official briefed on the investigation told CNN.

The mother of fugitive teenager Ethan Couch, known for using an “affluenza” defence in a fatal drunken-driving accident, has been returned to the USA from Mexico. Couch was deported from Mexico and was flown to Los Angeles early Thursday morning.

Her attorneys released a statement saying she had done nothing illegal and wanted to get back to Texas as soon as possible.

Tonya Couch had her nursing license revoked in 2012 for failing to disclose a reckless driving charge in 2003, according to the Texas Board of Nursing.

Federal and local authorities referred questions on Tonya Couch’s deportation to USA marshals, who led the cross-border hunt for Ethan Couch.

People walk past a building where Ethan Couch, 18, and his mother, Tonya Couch stayed in the Pacific …

He says authorities simply chose the most “rapid, secure and efficient means to return the fugitive back to the U.S”.

Prosecutors in Texas have said she will be charged with hindering the apprehension of a juvenile.

Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said that at the hearing she plans to ask a judge to transfer Ethan Couch’s case to adult court. Her bail was set at $1 million.

Charges were filed against Tonya Couch, 48, of Burleson late Wednesday.

If the judge declines to transfer Couch to adult court, Wilson will ask that his probation be revoked, in which case he could be held in a juvenile facility until his sentence expires when he turns 19 next April.

Prosecutors want to see Couch in an adult court, but because the alleged violation happened in the juvenile system, Couch effectively would start with a clean slate in the adult probation system.

Couch and his mother fled the United States earlier this month after a video surfaced online apparently showing Ethan Couch at a party where beer was being consumed.

A call to Tonya Couch’s attorney was not immediately returned Thursday. He could be held in Mexico for at least two weeks. Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Jane Robison said Thursday that no extradition hearing was planned ahead of the New Year’s holiday.

Couch was convicted of 4 counts of intoxication manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years of drink- and drug-free probation, which critics noticed as leniency as a result of of his family’s wealth.

As for her 18-year-old son, he is being held at a migrant detention center in the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City which is technically not a jail or prison, according to a Mexican immigration official.

High-profile Mexican attorney Fernando Benitez will represent “affluenza” teen Ethan Couch in his fight to stay in Mexico, CBS affiliate KTVT reported. “He will be here for the time that is necessary” for the deportation case to close, the migration official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the process could take weeks or months.